Ganzenmuller — Volume 63, Issue 1

Statistical analysis has increasingly become accepted as evidence in legal proceedings, yet the legal community rarely scrutinizes the quality and methodology underlying numerical representations. Ganzenmuller and Eldred introduce a symposium examining weaknesses in how statistics are deployed in law, particularly in constitutional and employment discrimination cases. Statistics differ fundamentally from traditional evidence: they aggregate underlying facts, which can conceal drastic mistakes and biases, and they often fail to capture obvious truths about the real world. The authors argue that legal professionals must be thoughtful and wary of consuming statistical data uncritically. They draw on examples from Supreme Court jurisprudence and statistical methodology to illustrate how aggregation processes hide personal biases and mistakes, and how courts may accept statistical results without questioning underlying observation protocols or potential researcher bias. The introduction sets the stage for symposium articles examining statistical evidence in free expression cases, antidiscrimination law, and legal doctrine generally.

Topics: Evidence & Procedure · Legal Theory

Keywords: statistical evidence · aggregation bias · Bayesian analysis · p-values · legal methodology